


I Understand That You're A Giant Idiot

by softywolf



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-16 23:29:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2288588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softywolf/pseuds/softywolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Friends episode title meme: "The One With Ross' New Girlfriend"</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Understand That You're A Giant Idiot

"Did you hear who Derek is bringing to dinner tomorrow night?" Scott asked, voice sounding distracted as he dug around in Stiles’ fridge as was the usual protocol whenever he came over.

"I haven’t talked to anyone else in three days so…wait, we’re allowed to bring people to pack dinner?" Stiles questioned incredulously. "Since when?"

"Since always, dude," Scott laughed. "Is that why you never brought Krissy?"

"I didn’t think I was allowed to! I thought it was supposed to be pack-only-weird-bonding-time or something," Stiles grabbed the plate he’d just made his sandwich on and carried it over to the table. He had dated Krissy for a little over a year and she had been super understanding about the standing dinner night with his friends. Until she hadn’t been anymore. There had been a fight and before the night was over, they had decided to call it quits. The thing was, he hadn’t been that surprised. She’d been interning an hour away and talking a lot about this other intern named Calla for a while. "Okay, so who is Derek bringing? His therapist?"

"Not funny, man," Scott chastised, surfacing from the fridge with a container full of leftover white chili. He popped it in the microwave and leaned against the counter where he could glare at Stiles until he apologized. They both knew how much therapy had helped Derek and Stiles really did feel bad about his comment. "He’s got a girlfriend, dude. Some ‘wolf he met when he went to visit Cora in Sacramento. Apparently they’ve been dating for a month or so."

The microwave beeped and Scott turned away to pull the steaming bowl of chili out. Stiles watched in silence, his mouth angled down in a frown. By the time Scott joined him at the table, he was back to pretending like he hadn’t just been hit with a wave of disappointment.

 

***

 

To say his crush on Derek was no big deal would have been a lie. A major fucking lie. He just pretended like it wasn’t to avoid ever having to discuss it. Besides the fact that he now had proof - i.e. his unnamed girlfriend that Stiles was trying really hard not to hate before he even met her - he had always known that it would never happen with Derek. For one, they had always sort of hated each other. It started after Scott was bit and continued on even after Derek had become Scott’s beta. Both the hatred and the dumb crush.

The thing was… Derek didn’t give up, even though his life had been one shitty thing after another. He kept trying to do good and fighting to protect people he cared about and even people he didn’t know. Yes, he had made a ton of mistakes (like seriously so many mistakes) but he didn’t let the failure hold him back. After the whole hit list thing, Derek fixed up his loft, started participating in pack meetings and started seeing a fucking therapist. And Stiles couldn’t help it. He really couldn’t. He had a thing for people that had been fucked over by life but who kept fighting despite it. Not to mention that Derek was hot like fire.

He enjoyed the banter, the witty comebacks Derek always threw his way. Sometimes he even enjoyed the pushing-each-other-around thing too. But what he really loved was the times when they’d both push all of it aside and actually have serious conversations, lunch together if Stiles’ dad was stuck at the station, movie nights when Derek realized that Stiles hadn’t seen one of his favourite movies. Yes, they kind of hated each other but it was kind of in an I-hate-my-friend kind of way.

So yeah, hearing about the girlfriend who Derek was apparently serious enough about to bring to the weekly Saturday dinner was cause for disappointment. If anyone asked what he’d done Friday night, he would tell them he definitely hadn’t spent the night laying on the couch drinking straight from a bottle of vodka he’d found under his bed and listening to the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack.

 

***

 

Stiles’ hangover was gone around noon. He spent a while in the kitchen, cooking himself breakfast and sipping on ginger water to ease the roiling of his stomach. After he’d eaten and showered, he settled down at his kitchen table with his laptop open and books all around him. He lost himself in his work, spent hour after hour looking through articles and the likes, all material he needed for his thesis.

When Stiles finally paused long enough to look at the clock, he realized that he was fifteen minutes late to dinner. He saved his work and hastily got dressed. By the time he pulled into the driveway at Allison and Lydia’s house, he was almost an hour late.

Everyone was gathered in the living room when Lydia ushered him inside.

“I’m so sorry. I was working on my thesis and lost track of time,” Stiles apologized profusely as he shrugged his coat off and laid it over the back of a chair. “I hope you guys haven’t been waiting on me.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, you aren’t the only one who’s late,” Erica rolled her eyes from her perch on Boyd’s lap.

Of course, that was the moment Derek arrived with his new girlfriend. Lydia let them in and Stiles remained silent as Derek introduced Hana to everyone. She was short and thin and beautiful and Stiles’ chest ached at the sight of her leaning into Derek’s side, laughing at something Allison had said.

At the table, Stiles ended up directly across from Derek. He glared at Lydia once they were seated and she only raised an eyebrow in response as if daring him to say something in front of everyone. Most of the pack had guessed about how Stiles felt about Derek but Lydia and Scott were the only ones he had talked at length with about it.

Stiles knew he was being uncharacteristically quiet but he couldn’t bring himself to jump into the conversation, choosing instead to listen while everyone got to know Hana. The dark haired girl told everyone about her older brother, Kane and their parents who were also werewolves and part of a pack in Sacramento that had originated from Japan. Kira was pleased to discover that some of the pack members were friends of her mother and father that she had known since she was a kid.

“Small world,” Stiles muttered, forgetting for a moment that he was surrounded by supernatural creatures with super hearing. He stabbed at the steak on his plate until he realized that the room had fallen silent after his comment. He really had to stop doing that. “Um…sorry?”

Scott made a comment about the food, drawing attention away from Stiles who was immensely grateful and loved his best friend more than anything in the whole world even curly fries, which lead to everyone else giving compliments to Allison and Lydia on the dinner they had prepared.

Dinner continued without another word from Stiles. When Allison disappeared into the kitchen to grab dessert, Stiles volunteered to help. The door of the kitchen swung shut, drowning out the conversation that continued on behind them. Allison busied herself with getting the strawberry cake Isaac had brought with him from the fridge and grabbing plates but the silence didn’t last very long.

“Are you okay?” She asked quietly.

“Peachy keen, Ally,” he answered, taking the plates from her. “Its not like it was ever going to happen between us anyway.”

She gave him a sad smile, kissed his cheek, and they returned to the dining room to hand out plates with chunks of cake on them.

 

***

 

As it turned out, everyone in the pack adored Hana. She and Kira made a traditional Japanese dinner of Tensoba for everyone. She had outings with everyone else from the pack, even Lydia. The fact that she was such a genuinely nice and funny person made it harder for Stiles to dislike her, like he desperately wanted to. She joined them for the next month’s worth of dinners and even spent the full moon with the ‘wolves while he, Lydia and Allison curled up in bed and watched a movie together.

“Would it make you feel better if we pretended to hate her?” Allison asked, running her fingers through his overly long hair.

“I think that would actually make me feel worse,” Stiles sighed.

“That means you’re a good person,” Lydia told him in her no-arguements voice. “And because I’m a good person, I’m going to tell you a secret.”

“If its a secret, telling me would technically make you a bad person,” Stiles said knowledgeably.

“He has a point, L,” Allison agreed, shrugging when her girlfriend glared at her.

“Do you two want me to tell you or are you going to continue arguing the ethics of secret keeping?” When her two companions remained silent, she sat up and crossed her legs. “I have it on good authority that Hana and Derek aren’t going to be together much longer.”

“What?” Allison and Stiles declared at the same time.

“In case you were wondering, this good authority is Hana’s older brother. He and I had lunch together on Wednesday,” Lydia started but couldn’t finish because Stiles interrupted with, “Why don’t our packs just go ahead and integrate already?”

“Don’t be silly,” Allison tugged him back down beside her and continued to smooth his hair away from his forehead.

“As I was saying,” said Lydia pointedly. “Kane ‘accidentally’ told me that his sister was only dating Derek to avoid an arranged marriage with another pack.”

“Does Derek know?” Stiles asked, despite the ache in his throat.

“I don’t know,” Lydia said with a shrug.

 

***

 

Stiles: Did Hana go home with Derek?

Scott: Uh I’m pretty sure her brother picked her up. Why?

Stiles: Tell you later.

 

***

 

It was only a little after 5am when Stiles knocked on the door of Derek’s loft. He shook his arms out as he waited, trying to rid his body of its nervous energy.

Derek opened the door and leaned against it, his hair sticking every which way and his eyelids drooping tiredly. The fact that he was wearing very comfy looking pajama bottoms and a too big t-shirt didn’t pass Stiles’ notice but the younger man stored the image away for another time.

“What is it, Stiles?” Derek asked, his voice rough in a way that Stiles knew meant he had been on the cusp of sleep when he’d been interrupted.

“I….” Stiles trailed off, forgetting for a moment why he’d even come. Sleepy Derek was almost too much for his brain to handle. “I have some information that I thought needed to be shared with you.”

“And clearly it had to be done at 5am, after a full moon,” Derek said with a sigh, turning and walking back into the loft. Stiles took that as a sign that he should follow him so he did. “It couldn’t have waited until I’d had at least seven hours of sleep?”

Stiles shook his head when Derek looked at him expectantly and watched as the werewolf slumped onto the couch, head propped on the arm.

“Are you going to tell me or am I going to have to wait until after I’ve died of exhaustion?” Derek inquired. Stiles could practically see the sarcasm dripping from his words.

“Okay so I guess I’ll just…I’ll just do it. Like ripping off a bandaid, right? Quick so the pain doesn’t last as long. Although I think this pain might last longer and…” He trailed off when he saw the look Derek was shooting him. The one he always got when his words were no longer relevant to the conversation being had. “Right, okay. Your girlfriend is only dating you because she didn’t want to be married off into another pack.”

When Derek only looked at him, Stiles’ felt his face heat up. “You already knew about the arranged marriage, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Derek answered. “And I’m very curious about a few things.”

“And those things would be…?” Stiles waved his hands at Derek in a get-on-with-it manner.

“One, how did you find out? She and I have worked very hard to make our relationship believable in order for her Alpha and her parents to lay off until she goes to college next month.”

“Make it believable?” Stiles echoed but Derek continued as if he hadn’t heard him.

“Two, why did you find it so important that you had to come tell me?” The look Derek was giving him was so intense that Stiles’ stomach lurched.

“We’re…friends. I was trying to protect you,” Stiles said, head still reeling.

“Right. Friends,” Derek said, sounding so much like a petulant child that Stiles had to laugh, even if his chest heart at the thought of Derek not even considering them friends.

“Okay, so we aren’t friends and I clearly overstepped my boundaries,” Stiles nodded, head tilted down as he backed away from the werewolf. When he was three steps away, he turned around and headed toward the door.

“Who said we aren’t friends?” Derek asked, stopping him in his tracks.

Stiles turned slowly and narrowed his eyes at Derek as he said, “You just did, buddy.”

“It feels kind of like you’re putting words in my mouth,” Derek growled.

“That whole teeth-and-claws thing stopped scaring me years ago,” Stiles told him, shaking his head in a you’re-acting-like-a-child-how-pathetic way.

“I wasn’t trying to scare you.” Derek crossed his arms and glared at his feet. “We are friends, Stiles. That’s the problem.”

“So we are friends but you don’t want us to be?” Stiles was confused but that hadn’t stopped him before. Usually, being confused spurred him on until he found an answer to whatever question he’d been presented with. “I don’t understand.”

“I have wanted you, wanted you to be more than my friend, for a long time, Stiles,” Derek said, voice impossibly soft. He was quiet for a moment before he tilted his head up and to the side, allowed his eyes to meet Stiles’. “Do you understand, now?”

“I understand that you’re a giant idiot,” Stiles told him, unable to hide the grin slashing his mouth wide open.

“You might not feel the same way but that doesn’t give you the right to make fun of me,” Derek stood then, his broad shoulders hunched forward as if he were trying to protect himself from whatever Stiles was going to say next.

“Now who seems to be putting words in someone else’s mouth?” Stiles laughed, stepping closer. He extended his arm, fingers reaching for Derek’s. “I tried so hard to hate Hana when I met her. It was impossible because y’know, she’s almost as bubbly as Kira. But I wanted to. I wanted to because she had with you what I have wanted for so long.”

Derek grabbed his hand, used the grip on his fingers to pull him closer. Derek was warm and still looked so tired, especially this close.

“You mean it?” Derek asked, looking through his lashes at the pale, freckled face before him.

“Did you hear a lie?” Stiles whispered.

Derek didn’t answer with words. Briefly, Stiles wondered what he would have said if he had chose to speak. Instead, he parted his lips against Stiles’ and let his tongue speak for him. Stiles didn’t think Derek had ever been very good with words anyway.

 

***

 

Derek and Stiles came to the next Saturday dinner together.

**Author's Note:**

> This is terrible. I'm so sorry. [Tumblr](http://www.softywolf.tumblr.com/).


End file.
